T-Mobile Nokia Astound On Sale Now: $80 Symbian^3

As promised, T-Mobile USA has put the Nokia Astound – aka the Nokia C7 – up for sale, with the Symbian^3 smartphone priced at a bargain $79.99. The handset, which we reviewed yesterday, has a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, 8-megapixel camera, front-facing camera and a slick metal chassis.

There's also quadband UMTS/WCDMA, though sadly not the pentaband support which the European version of the C7 offers. You also don't get the impressive optics of the 12-megapixel Nokia N8, but then again the Astound is a lot slinkier than its photo-focused sibling.

Now, many will turn their noses up at Symbian, but it remains Nokia's primary smartphone push for 2011; the company has previously said it expects to ship 150m Symbian devices this year, and the first Nokia Windows Phones aren't expected until 2012.